Page 13 of Astrid
“Yes,” both Alan and Astrid said. They concluded their business, then Mandi took them to the front door. It surprised Astrid that Neil was with them the entire time, not leaving Mandi’s side. She also noted that he let her tell Alan what she wanted, not telling her no to any of her ideas or suggestions.
Fifteen minutes later, they were at the front entrance and waiting for the first three men they’d met to show up. Once they did, Alan only held out his hand, and the man frowned at him.
“Our phones?”
“Oh,” he said, and removed them from his back pocket to hand over. Once Alan took them, he passed them to Astrid, then put the Jeep in gear and left. Ten minutes down the road, he pulled over, hopped out, and walked in a circle, shaking his arms out, and rubbing his palms down the thighs of his jeans.
“You okay?” Astrid asked with a smirk.
“Yeah, but man, that was intense.” He climbed back in and shook his head at her. “All I can say is that I’m just glad that I won’t have to do the work there. There’s no way I could work peacefully with all those guns around.”
“Yeah, I understand. Now we only have one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Who are you going to get to help you install the cabinets?”
“Oh shit,” Alan looked at her, shocked, then he frowned. “Right off the top of my head I’m thinking Johnny and Josh.”
“Why them?”
“Because, they’re the construction workers. They own Stuart construction.” Neither said anything else on the way home. Once they arrived, and pulled into the garage, Astrid noticed that the others quickly entered as they exited the Jeep. She didn’t know whether she was glad or angry when John broke away, and came over and hugged her.
“How did everything go?”
“Good,” she nodded. “I’ll let Alan explain it to you. I have some information I need to download.” She grabbed her purse, the camera from the back of the GPS, and after shutting her door, she looked at Alan. “You can keep the gun for now, but I’m going to want it back.” Then, she turned on her heel and hurried toward the house.
CHAPTER6
The first thingAstrid did when she entered the house was to make a beeline for the coffee pot. Seeing it had just finished perking, she grabbed a cup, filled it, then made her way downstairs. After putting all her things down on the end of one of the tables, she went back up and grabbed three computers and several monitors from the boxes she’d unpacked earlier that morning. Seeing Ava and Joyce enter, she called them over to help her. In no time, they had most of the equipment in the upstairs office downstairs.
It took Astrid an hour to set everything up the way she liked it, and once she sat down, she looked at the other two women, then sighed, “Sorry, but I had to get this set up. Do you know if Morgan’s here?”
“We called her, she’ll be here shortly,” Joyce said, and sat down in her regular seat, which happened to be on the other end of the table Astrid had set up on. They all looked up when Morgan came down the stairs.
“What’s up?”
Astrid held up her hand for her to wait, then pulled her normal phone, and removed the button cam from her blouse. She grinned when they laughed, and waited for her to get ready. Finally, she sat back, grabbed a set of cords, and plugged it into her phone, and one of the laptops.
“Okay,” she sighed deeply and sipped her coffee. Looking directly at Morgan, she began, “Alan had an appointment with someone who wanted some shelves installed. I went with him.”
“Why?”
“Because, I’m new here and no one knows me yet. Justin had his own run-in with Ava, and Alex said the guy driving the big black truck saw him.”
“Shit, that’s right, and no one but Alan could have gone to that meeting.”
“Correct, I went because I didn’t know if it was a real meeting for his business, or if it was something along the lines of a ruse to get him away from everyone else.”
“Thank you for looking out for him.”
“Not a problem. At first, I thought I had inserted myself into his business for no reason.”
“Until...?” all three women asked at once.
Astrid just leaned forward enough to punch a couple of keys on the laptop, then pointed to the wall where she’d had the photos projected on six different screens. The other three women turned and looked, then whipped their heads back to her. “Are you shitting me?” Morgan asked in shock. She was the second one to jump to her feet and go over to study the photos as they slowly roved over the screens. They all watched as several yards of fencing, with multiple keep-out signs came into view. While the women looked at them, Astrid was busy on another laptop downloading apps and programs to run facial recognition on Neil, and his men. It didn’t take long to have that information start rolling in.
“Morgan,” Astrid called out, and waved her over. The three women stood behind her and she pointed to a rough video. “This is from the motion camera I was able to slap on the back of the GPS unit. These are the first three men that stopped us when we first pulled in.” She pointed and they watched, then she paused the tape and pointed to yet another laptop.
